1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to network software testing, and more particularly, to methods and systems for dynamic attribute updating in a distributed test framework.
2. Description of the Related Art
As the use of software in performing daily tasks is increasing rapidly, assessing software reliability through software testing has become an imperative stage in software development cycle. As is well known, software testing is used to find and eliminate defects (i.e., bugs) in software, which if undetected, can cause the software to operate improperly. In general, a stand-alone computer or a network of computer resources can perform software testing. When a stand-alone computer system is used to perform the software testing, the computer system is programmed to run a test selected by the software user. Comparatively, if a network of computer resources is used, the user is responsible for manually adding and deleting the computer resources to the network, programming the master computer system and the server, initiating the running of a user-selected test, and running the test on the group of dedicated computer systems coupled to the server.
In either scenario, a heavy user interface is required for initiating the software testing on the master computer, scheduling the running of the specific test on the system resources, adding and deleting of the system resources, keeping track of the system resources and their respective hardware and software configuration, and maintaining the system resources. Also, in either case, dedicated system resources perform the software testing. That is, the system resources are designed to solely be used for software testing.
Further, when using integrated testing software, which is often capable of generating reports as well as testing software, test engineers often are unable to directly customize the integrated testing software because the software is developed separately. Specifically, integrated testing software generally is developed to generically fit testing systems. The testing software is then made available to the customers, which utilize the integrated testing software to perform their particular software tests. However, if the customers need to customize the generic integrated testing software to more particular reflect their testing environment, the customer often is unable to do so. As a result, the customer must send a request to the integrated testing software developer to integrate the customer's requirements into the integrated testing software. Thereafter, the developer incorporates the custom test environment requirements into the test software and again deploys the testing software on the customer's test system environment. Unfortunately, this is a long process, often requiring weeks to complete.
In view of the foregoing, there is a need for a flexible methodology and system capable of selecting and utilizing dynamic, cross-platform computer resources to process a computer software. Further, the system should be capable of allowing a user to customize the cross-platform computer resources as needed in a non-complex and efficient manner.